Irish Mike stands framed by the doorway, like it was built for the purpose. He is a big man, huge, with whiskey veins popping in his nose and cheeks. His teeth are crooked and cracked from a hundred bar fights and he smiles broadly, displaying them like medals. He sports a soft fisherman’s cap, worn rakishly to one side with a shamrock pin on the peak. And when he speaks, his accent is more Hollywood Irish than a living dialect.
Irish Mike. A Mick who has never been to Ireland. An immigrant who never emigrated. A plastic Paddy who learned all he knew about the old country from grandma’s stories and Boy’s Own.
‘Daniel McEvoy,’ he says gently, shuffling into the room, like a crooner about to break into a number. ‘A hard man to find.’
‘Not for my friends.’
Madden is all leprechaun charm. ‘Are we not friends then, Daniel?’ His eyes are dull green, and his skin reminds me of a plucked chicken.
I am too old for this.
‘Cut the shite, Mike. What do you want?’
Mike chuckles fondly. ‘Shite. I like that.’ He leans against the wall and it creaks. ‘I want the money you owe me.’
Groan. He isn’t even here for me. I’m a bonus.
‘Vic owes you money, not me. He owes me money too, but out of respect for you and your organisation, you can collect first.’
Mike is a little surprised by this backchat, but amused too. ‘Thanks, McEvoy. Very Catholic of you. But I’d rather you pay.’
‘Not the way it works, Mike. Even God can’t transfer debt. I don’t owe you a cent, and if you don’t stop weaving it into the conversation, I’ll squeeze my way through all that fat on your shoulders and break your thick neck.’
Might as well try bravado, see if it works.
If it was fear and submission I was hoping for, then my bluntness does not have the desired effect. Mike Madden looks tired and resigned, like he is so fed up of doing things the hard way and why can’t it just be easy for once.
‘Righto, laddie. I hear you. Now you listen to me. I’ve been searching for something.’
‘Why don’t you ask the universe? Seems to work for a lot of people. That’s a secret, by the way.’
Madden grinds his teeth. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’
We both know where this is going.
‘I don’t know, Mike. Believe me. But I know how you search for things.’
Mike spreads his hands wide. ‘Couldn’t be avoided. The disk could have been in your apartment.’
I am surprised. ‘A disk? A bloody disk. What do I look like to you? Jason goddamn Bourne?’
Mike Madden hooks the flap of his tweed sports coat over the revolver at his belt.
‘Any road, laddie. You’re going to have to quit work early tonight.’
He’s right. I can’t see any way out of leaving here with him.
‘I have a gun too, you know.’
‘Maybe, laddie. But I have several. One hostile move from you and the floors run with blood. Wooden floors, though, so at least the blood will wipe off, if you get to it quick.’
I place my gun on the desk. ‘No one has said laddie for a hundred bloody years, you phoney.’
‘My heart is Irish,’ objects Mike, worried more by the insult than the weapon.
‘Your heart is clogged with bacon and beer and will drop you in your tracks any day now.’
Which is an unusual thing to say to a person you just met.
Two freckle-faced potato-head types squash themselves into the doorway, fumbling guns from their pockets. I know them both from Faber’s kitchen.
‘You put that gun back in the drawer, laddie. Or my boys will execute everyone in this club.’
That’s what I thought. I glare at Madden, so the murder in my eyes is all he can see.
‘If I were like you, Mike, if I didn’t care about those people out there, then you would be dead right now. I just wanted you to know that and show a bit of respect.’
Irish Mike actually winks. ‘Point taken, laddie. Now come over here and let’s pretend we’re friends.’
Mike takes my phone, then we stroll out of the office and across the casino floor like a couple of swells, and consequently none of his four escorts are forced to shoot anyone. Jason is ready to fight, chest out, arms dangling, but I calm him with a lateral two-fingered slice, which sounds a bit complicated but is one of our door signals. Doesn’t matter how big your pecs are, bullets cut right through.
‘It’s okay, Jason. Hold the fort, I’ll be back in a few hours.’
‘You sure, boss?’
‘Yeah. Me and Mike have a little business to discuss.’
Mike has an R-Class Mercedes Benz waiting at the kerb, and we wait an embarrassing few minutes while two of his laddies squash themselves into the rear seats.
I wink at Mike, since he’s a winky guy. ‘You’re one hell of a mob boss. Two of your boys in the baby seats.’
Mike is prepared to argue that one. ‘You think I should have brought two vehicles? What about the environment? What about my carbon footprint, laddie?’
‘Laddie? You really should drop that. It is too hilarious.’
‘In the car,’ says Mike straight-faced. I can see I’m wearing him down.
We drive across town and I can’t get to grips with the fact that it’s all over for me. Once we get wherever we’re going and Mike Madden ascertains that I do not in fact have this mysterious secret-agent-type disk, then he will most likely shoot me in the heart.
A disk? This is beyond weird. What the hell is Zeb doing with a disk? All he knows about computers could be written on one of those horse pills he sells to irritable-bowel patients, or the stop-go crowd, as he sensitively refers to them.
Nearly dead, I think, trying to nail the idea home. Nearly dead now.
But no sickening feeling of dread seeps through. Even the thought of torture to come doesn’t penetrate my calm.
That’s because I don’t believe any of this. This week has been too bizarre to be real. My brain is waiting for me to wake up in a tangle of sweat-sheened sheets. You can’t go from doorman to superman in a week, not if you want to survive. I do want to survive, but I can’t see how I’m going to manage it.
We pass Chequer’s Diner and the park. I see Carmél, the waitress, joshing it up with a customer, a guy in a hunter’s cap. He swats her behind and she pours him a refill, smile bigger than a slice of melon.
I didn’t know there was a backside-swatting option.
Maybe there wasn’t for me.
Barely ten p.m. and already the streets are drying up. Cloisters is a daytime town. Leafy suburbs and four-wheel drives. Wooden houses filling their lots right to the fences, and expansive parks with soft-fall areas for the little kids. Our sordid world fires a shot across the bows of decency once in a while, but according to the Cloisters Chronicle, this small town has the third lowest crime rate in the country, and the second highest literacy rate. It’s nice to live in a place where people still prefer books to TV.
Ghost Zeb doesn’t let me get too deep into the maudlin. It’s a bit late for community spirit, partner. Don’t tell me, if you survive the night, then Slotz gets turned into a soup kitchen and St Daniel spends his days in a soutane dispensing homely wisdom with every bowl of chowder.
‘Chowder?’ splutters Irish Mike. ‘Jesus, laddie. Don’t crack up yet; the night is young.’
Thinking aloud again. Bad sign.
I really wish that man would stop with the laddie bit. It’s offensive. Maybe a sharp elbow in the ribs would knock the leprechaun out of him, but then I might not reach journey’s end alive and find out what happened to Zeb.
Very good point. Excellent in fact. Hold on to that.
‘Where are we headed?’ I ask Mike pleasantly. You never know, he might tell me.
‘Shut the hell up, McEvoy.’
Then again. .
We don’t drive for that long. Nowhere is too far away in Cloisters. On our short trip we pass eight churches and three patrol cars. God and guns, that’s what we put our faith in here. Red bulbs buzz overhead, stretching down through the blocks like landing lights.
Pretty soon we’re pulling around back of a familiar strip mall. Zeb’s place. Last time I was here, I was loading a corpse into a trunk. It makes sense to finish things at the clinic. A couple of bodies in a burnt-out fire trap would have accidental death written all over them.
‘End of the line, laddie,’ says Mike, and I feel each stone crunch under the Benz’s tyres as the vehicle slows.
Maybe, I think, suddenly gripped by the absolute certainty that if I go into that building on Mike’s terms I am dead. But not the way you expect it, laddie.
What I’m about to do doesn’t seem part of the real world. It’s one of those ideas that generally would never make it past the good-sense filter in my head, but for the past few days that filter has been switched off. And when a notion like this occurs to me, I fear the switch may be jammed.
So. Two men in front, two behind and Irish Mike to my left. All armed, all dangerous. But all also pretty confined in their movements and probably not expecting me to buck such superior numbers.
If I am going to act, it needs to be right now, before the seat belts come off. I snort a few breaths to psych myself up, then make my move.
Okay. Five targets. Here we go.
First I give Irish Mike the heel of my hand in his windpipe; that should keep him gasping for five minutes. His eyes bug out like he’s been shot in the arse with a harpoon, a vision I will hopefully have a chance to play back for Jason. He loves that kind of thing.
The guys in the back are first to react, so I reach under the middle row seats, yank the adjustment bars and, using my legs as pistons, drive them into the men behind. The seats slide back smoothly on their rails; God bless German engineering. Shins splinter, and maybe an ankle. One guy’s head cracks the rear window. No weapons drawn as yet.
Part of me feels like I’m watching this happen. It’s as though someone else is taking decisive action and I’m somehow observing from a distance and not altogether approving of what’s going on.
Still two guys in front.
I reach past Irish Mike’s spasming torso and flick the seat levers on the front seats. Shifting my weight forward, I slam the seats till their hinges pop, pinning Irish Mike’s men to the dash. One still has an arm free to reach for his gun, so I dislocate the shoulder’s ball-and-socket joint with a punch in the armpit.
This is working out pretty well, all things considered. My giddy side wants to giggle, but I choke it down. Later for the girlishness.
The Benz fills up with groans like we’re under water, and there’s a sea anemone of blood on the windscreen. We roll ten feet and one wheel mounts the kerb, swatting a trashcan.
I give Irish Mike one more whack because he’s such a dick, then I’m out of the vehicle, sprinting for Zeb’s back entrance. My boots crunch on the loose stones and there’s a cold mist on my face that tastes like life. I relish the movement and wetness for a moment until I reach the delivery door and I need to concentrate once more.
All the guns I own, and not one of them in my possession.
The door opens inwards and there’s yet another of Mike’s potato heads, coming wide-eyed to investigate the trashcan ruckus. This guy I almost feel sorry for. His gun is dangling by his side and I’m bearing down on him, snarling like an angry bear.
He manages an oh before I tuck my head under his arm and tackle him into the shop. The oh shoots up a couple of octaves, then we’re halfway across the room. The guy’s toes are dragging the floor and his elbows beat a tattoo on my back, for all the good it does him. Maybe if he had the wits or time to use his gun. .
No wits and definitely no time.
‘Mother,’ he says. ‘Mudda. .’
Swearing or calling for his mom. Who knows.
A wall rears and I put him into it. Through two layers of Sheetrock, a timber frame and neatly on to the dentist’s chair. Can’t be good for a person’s insides. Still, better to be safe than sorry, so I scramble through the jagged hole and clang Mike’s moaning man on the temple with a handy rinsing pan.
No more moaning. No alarm either; an alarm would have been nice.
Wait. There is moaning. Behind me in Zeb’s homeopathic store.
It’s me, idiot. I am alive.
Zeb. No way.
Mike’s man surrenders his weapon without a struggle. A nice shiny Colt.45. Seven in the mag, one in the pipe, presuming this guy, let’s call him Steve, presuming Steve keeps his weapon loaded.
‘McEvoy, you bastard!’
A roar from outside. Irish Mike has recovered quickly and is done with laddie.
‘Come out, McEvoy.’
Good. That’s good. They don’t want to come in. There’s still a slim chance. Of course I should have killed them all, and then the chance might have some weight to it.
I tumble through a haze of chalk and sawdust back into Zeb’s unit. There is blood on the floor, glistening in the tube light, tracked in long arcs across the carpet and concrete. The shiniest track leads to a shivering shape in the corner. It’s my friend Zeb, taped to his own office chair. They’ve been playing human pinball with him.
Zeb’s eyes are half closed, there’s a bruise covering most of his face and blood drips from his fingertips. His crafty eyes are shrouded by bruised lids, and of his sharp hustler features there is no sign. He looks bad and probably feels worse, if he’s feeling anything at all.
I spin the chair to face me.
‘Zeb? Tell me, quick. What did you do?’
‘’Bout time,’ Zeb spits through blood bubbles. ‘Paramol, ibuprofen. Under the safe.’
I shake him and a cut under his eye weeps blood. ‘No. Tell me. What the hell is the disk?’
Zeb coughs and something whines in his chest. ‘No disk. All bullshit. Come on, Dan. Pills.’
This is how it gets. After such a beating, pain is the only thing in Zeb’s life. He doesn’t care about living or dying. Just pain.
‘Okay. Okay.’
I pick through the bottles under the safe. Most of them have handwritten labels. Cheap generic pills. Zeb making a buck any way he can.
‘Five minutes, Mike,’ I shout at the ceiling. ‘Five minutes to find this goddamn disk.’
No answer for a moment, just dragging footsteps and the clink of metal.
Then, ‘Five minutes, McEvoy. I hear any sirens and I burn this place to the ground.’
Great. I have three hundred seconds and nothing to bargain with.
Paramol. I find a bottle and run a finger along the instructions.
‘Fuck the dosage!’ howls Zeb. ‘Give them all to me.’
Not happening. In Zeb’s state he would chew those things until his heart went asleep.
I pop the bottle, shake out a double dose and Zeb eats them out of my hand like a pony chewing sugar lumps. By the time I’ve torn the tape from his wrists, my restored friend is enjoying a little chemical calm.
‘Where were you, man?’ he sobs, then finishes with a jagged giggle. ‘I’ve been broadcasting. Sending out signals. Holding complete conversations with you. Couldn’t you hear me call?’
I didn’t hear shit, says Ghost Zeb.
‘I heard you, brother,’ I say. ‘I’m here. Now you’ve got to tell me what you did.’
‘I stayed alive. That’s what I did. Not proud, but I did it.’
I shake him gently. ‘What did you do? Come on, Zeb, tell me.’
Zeb blinks like he’s about to nod off. ‘I did Mike Madden’s hair. Like I did you, Dan. Sweet set of transplants.’
Hair transplants! No way. Not all this.
‘Asshole’s paranoid, let me tell you. Brought in students from China to assist, so they wouldn’t know who he was. Little hands they had, did lovely work. In six months you’ll never know. Mike will have a head of hair that would make Pierce Brosnan crap himself.’
Time is a-wasting. ‘Lovely work. Great. So what’s the problem?’
Even with a mashed face Zeb manages a guilty expression. ‘It was an opportunity. I couldn’t pass it up.’
From outside, ‘Two minutes, McEvoy. You better pull the rabbit out of the hat, laddie.’
Zeb chuckles. ‘Laddie. Always with the laddie. You Irish, all retards.’
‘What opportunity? Zeb, these people are going to kill us.’
‘Not you, Dan. Not you, my big pet Schwarzenegger. I bet you’ve fucked up a few of them already.’
He has a point. ‘Maybe. But why are they after me, Zeb?’
Zeb studies the blood on his fingers; no clue where it came from. ‘I told Mike I filmed the procedure. Said I’d put it on YouTube. The Irish in New York would piss themselves. You should have seen him during the operation: big baby cried like a. . baby. Wouldn’t let me smoke or anything.’
‘That is unbelievable.’
‘I know,’ said Zeb thickly. ‘I’m always careful with the ash.’
‘Not the cigarette. You tried to blackmail a crime lord?’
‘Hardly a lord. What has he got, like a dozen men? Only twenty grand, that’s all I asked for. Twenty grand to destroy the disk. ’S a bargain.’
‘But there was no disk.’
Zeb hiccups and blood rims his gums. ‘Course fucking not. Do you see any cameras? It only occurred to me later.’
I grit my teeth. ‘And when did you tell Mike that I had the disk?’
Zeb wheels himself backwards. ‘Two days, Dan. For two days I swore that it was all a lie. Two fucking days with the teeth-punching and the head-banging against the wall. Some fucking warehouse in Ackroyd. There’s pieces of me all over that shithole.’
‘Then you told Mike that I had it.’
‘Yeah, I said that.’ Zeb’s chin drops to his sternum. ‘What else could I do? You’re a tough Irish motherfucker, Dan. I knew these whiskey gangsters couldn’t drop you. No way. You’d kill them all and save me. It was my only hope.’
This is a lot of talking for a man with broken bones and missing teeth, and Zeb collapses into a spasm of wet coughs.
‘Idiot,’ I shout at his shuddering frame. ‘For eight hundred years all we Irish have had is our pride, and you try to strip it away from a dangerous man.’
Zeb spits blood and a tooth. It sits like an iceberg in the sunset sea.
‘A mistake, Dan, I see that now. But don’t let me die here. Work something out. Play the Celtic card.’ Zeb is crying, wringing his hands.
The Celtic card. I do have one up my sleeve. Maybe.
The front door booms as a forearm is repeatedly bashed against it. Lights flicker with the force. I’m guessing that the five minutes are up.
‘To hell with both of you,’ calls Irish Mike Madden. ‘To hell in flames.’
Orange flickers beyond the blinds. Could be a cop car; more likely a makeshift torch. Mike is going to burn us out.
I rack my brain for the thread of an idea. Something to reel sanity back in. Nothing. Just more lunacy.
Concentrate really hard and teleport. Dig an underground tunnel. Call the cops.
‘Brite-Smile,’ says Zeb.
Bright smile? Or Brite-Smile. Of course. Go through the dentist’s where I deposited Steve. I’m a little embarrassed that a punch-drunk surgeon came up with that before me.
I take two steps towards the jagged hole before the breeze chills the sweat on my forehead. There’s someone in there.
Then a voice. ‘Steve’s out cold. McEvoy took his gun.’
Steve? No way.
Irish Mike calls from outside: ‘We got the exits covered, McEvoy. You try to run and you’re dead.’
Maybe on my own I could make it, but not hefting Zeb.
I tap a finger on my temple, trying to focus. ‘Okay, Mike. You win. Let’s talk.’
Close quarters is my speciality. But I need to get them close before I can be special.
Irish Mike mulls this offer over for a minute. ‘Very well, laddie. Throw Steve’s gun next door, and your shoes too, then go stand in the corner.’
Shoes? What’s that all about? What does he think, I’m a sole ninja?
I toss the Colt through the hole, and my boots, then traipse into the corner behind Zeb, feeling like a naughty schoolboy. I bet Mike would be an arsehole to work for.
‘Pussy,’ says Zeb, his voice barely more than a whisper. ‘I held out for two days.’
If his ear was not crusted with blood and mucus, I would smack it.
‘You shut up or pass out and let me handle this.’
‘Yeah, maybe you can take off your pants. That’ll teach ’em.’
Zeb never lets up. At least when he was in my head I didn’t have to look at him.
And that is my best friend. Christ.
Irish Mike comes in the back door, flanked by two of his lieutenants. One is hobbling and the other is sporting a nose that wouldn’t look out of place in a boxing ring. Mike himself wears a sunburn of anger. A little less cocky, though, I think. They shuffle slowly forward through the blood tracks and the supplement boxes, never taking their eyes off me. A third heavy appears at the hole in the wall, squinting down the barrel of a machine pistol.
Mike swallows and gags. ‘You prick,’ he says, gingerly massaging his throat. ‘Who hits people in the neck? What kind of person are you?’
I don’t answer. What’s the point?
After a minute’s scowling, Mike is done feeling sorry for himself.
‘I’ll live, I guess.’ He lights a cigarette with a long wooden match, sucking hard, bending the flame. ‘So, McEvoy, where’s the disk?’
Zeb is whimpering softly; maybe he has the right idea. There are three criminals pointing weapons at us and I don’t have any good news for them. We are flanked in a small room with no hope of escape except if these people are sufficiently dim to relax their guard again.
‘Here’s the thing, Mike. There is no disk. Never was.’ I can’t resist rapping Zeb’s crown. ‘This gobshite tried to bluff you, then dragged me in when negotiations turned painful.’
Mike conducts with his cigarette. ‘Yeah, see that’s what the doc told me shortly after he told me there was a disk. So what’s true and what ain’t? I can’t tell.’
‘Trust me, Mike. I’m Irish. We’re Irish. I swear on the tricolour there’s no disk. This dick wouldn’t know how to use a camera.’
Mike reaches under his soft cap, scratching his head. ‘That’s touching, laddie, the Irish connection, but you know as well as I do that the Gaels have been cutting each other’s throats for centuries. It’s gonna take more than that. So what else have we got in common?’
‘We got that itch,’ I say, pointing a finger.
Mike whips his hand down like he’s been slapped by a nun. ‘What itch? What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Is that what this is all about? Irish Mike Madden got some new hair and he’s feeling a little sensitive about it.’
‘Fuck you,’ shouts Mike, then dissolves into a racking cough. Those neck jabs really take it out of a person.
‘Come on, Mike. This is the twenty-first century. Surgery is a positive thing. It shows you care about your appearance. A hair transplant today is like a barber-shop shave fifty years ago. If you can afford it, do it.’
‘’Zactly,’ mutters Zeb. ‘That’s what I’ve been saying.’
It is exactly what he’s been saying. I’m just regurgitating the spiel that Zeb sold me.
‘No one cares, Mike. You know how many Americans had surgery last year? Have a guess; go on, hazard a guess.’ I don’t wait for a guess, in case Zeb gave Mike the speech too. ‘Twelve million. Can you believe that? Twelve mill-i-on. Chances are at least one of your boys had liposuction in the past month.’
The beefcake on Mike’s left blushes a little, then points his gun at my forehead.
Mike pulls himself together. ‘Yeah? What would you know about it?’
‘I know about it,’ I shoot back. ‘Because I have that itch too.’ It’s time for the cap to come off. I try to do it nonchalant, like I show people all the time. I peel off the hat and stand there in all my transplanted glory.
Mike squints a little, then beckons me forward under the light. I oblige, tilting my head so the shorter guys can get a look.
‘I gotta say,’ the boss says finally, ‘that’s not half bad.’
‘You should have seen him six weeks ago,’ grunts Zeb. ‘Fucking cue ball. Now those hairs will fall out before they grow back, but it gives you an idea.’
‘Still itches a little.’
Zeb is obviously getting his second wind. ‘It’s all in your head. The itch doesn’t last for more than a week. Mike is legitimately itchy; he has the scabs from two thousand lateral cuts. You’re just a fruitcake.’
Mike pokes his scalp gingerly. ‘It’s driving me crazy. I wanna shoot people all the time. Last Wednesday, I almost smacked my little girl.’
I try to appear shocked, as though knowing Mike as well as I do, little-girl-smacking would be totally out of character.
‘Your own little girl? Jesus.’
I must have oversold it. ‘Yeah. Don’t take the piss, McEvoy.’
‘Well, you know, hitting daughters in general, it’s not good, is it?’
Mike reaches to scratch his head, then stops himself. ‘Screw this. Your hair looks good, I’ll give you that. It gives me hope for the future, but this asshole tried to blackmail me.’
‘Over what? A hair transplant? Just how sensitive are you, Mike? All of this for a hair transplant?’
Mike rears forward suddenly, kicking Zeb in the chest, forcing his chair backwards. ‘This is not about the transplant. That is not the fucking point. He tried to blackmail me. I gotta make an example.’
This is priceless. ‘An example? Who do you think is watching, Mike? Where exactly do you think you are?’
I shout the next line to the ceiling. ‘This is Cloisters, Mike. Cloisters! The local PD will tolerate you until the moment you kill someone, then your arse is going to the slammer. My guess, Mike, is they’re already up on your cell phones and have your club under surveillance.’ I don’t mention the multiple homicide in The Brass Ring.
Madden scowls. ‘You don’t know me well enough to call me Mike, laddie. Mister Madden will do just fine.’
My mouth is running away with me now. ‘And another thing. Now that I think of it, no one ever said laddie in Ireland. That’s Scotland you’re thinking about.’
‘Same country,’ offers one of Mike’s dimmer boys.
Madden is horrifed. ‘Same country? Same fucking country? Jesus Christ, Henry. I knew I shouldn’t have hired you. In fact, you’re fired!’
This gets a few laughs as the firing is performed jabbed-finger Apprentice style. With all the attention on poor Henry, I decide to go close quarters.
It doesn’t take more than a second, and the atmosphere in this cramped reception area is so surreal, with the strip lights and dust clouds, that nobody can quite believe what’s happening. They keep right on laughing as I launch myself off the back of Zeb’s chair, snag Macey Barrett’s stiletto from the ceiling tile and land among them. Mike’s men are knocked aside like skittles. They tumble away from me as though I am at the centre of a blast zone. Cupboards collapse and Zeb’s fake marble worktop splinters and splits.
‘You move quick for a six-footer,’ says Mike as the steel tickles the underside of his chin. ‘I’m never going to learn. That’s twice.’
It’s a tense situation. I can smell gun oil and nerves. My perspective is skewed by the prolonged tension and I’m seeing everything through a fish eye. Wannabe gangsters bob in and out of my vision, huge pistols bearing down on me like train tunnels.
‘Stay calm, Dan. Focus.’
‘Ghost Zeb? Is that you?’
‘No. This would be real Zeb.’
Shite.
Mike is real angry now. ‘What next, McEvoy? My boys are jumpy enough as it is. You think this kind of stunt is calming them down any?’
Time to pull myself together.
‘I want to see the transplants, Mike. See how they’re healing up.’
Mike’s face collapses in on itself like his mouth is a black hole. ‘What the. . Are you kidding me? See the transplants? My shrink tells me I’m not ready.’
‘Shrink? Do all you guys have shrinks now? Tony Soprano made it okay?’
‘Soprano never had a hair transplant, laddie.’
I push the blade a quarter of a centimetre into his neck. ‘One more laddie. One more. .’
I hear a couple of schnicks, and wide-eyed hulks shift in my peripheral vision. Mike’s boys are considering independent action.
Mike raises a palm. ‘Hold it. Wait, you morons. You shoot him, that blade goes into my neck.’ Something occurs to him. ‘Is that Macey’s stiletto?’
There’s no point denying it, so I don’t. ‘He was doing that shuffle thing. I had no choice.’
‘So the whole Brass Ring thing was a set-up?’
‘Two birds, one stone. It seemed like a plan.’
Irish Mike actually sniffs. ‘I gave Macey that blade.’
‘Yeah? Well he should have kept it in his pants.’
‘He was my best and brightest.’
‘If that’s true, you really are screwed.’ I grab the peak of Irish Mike’s hat and twist it from his head.
‘Aaargh,’ he screams, as though I have inflicted actual pain, and I feel a moment’s regret. It’s hard taking off the hat out in the world.
There are hundreds of tiny scabs ranged across Mike’s freckled scalp like rows of troops.
‘Dense. A lot denser than mine.’
‘I had a whole team working on Mike,’ mutters Zeb. ‘You get what you pay for.’
‘Prick,’ says Mike, and I can’t help agreeing with him.
One of Mike’s scabs is floating a little high, so I poke it with my thumb.
‘There’s your problem,’ I say, like I’m concerned. ‘Infection. You haven’t been taking your antibiotics.’
Mike’s eyes flick to his lieutenants. Guilty. ‘I wanted a few beers. You can’t drink on those things.’
‘Looks pretty painful, Zeb, this infection. Could it get nasty?’
Zeb catches on quick. ‘Sure. Balls nasty. Your whole scalp is gonna feel like a septic pimple. Transplants fall out and you got a head full of scar tissue. Looks like a third-degree burn.’
Zeb is full of shit, but Mike buys it. ‘Scar tissue, huh?’
‘You’ll be like an extra from a Romero movie.’
Mike is incensed. ‘This is typical of you service guys. You never hear the downside beforehand. It’s all roses until you hit an underground pipe, or you find a lump you weren’t expecting, or your fucking head explodes with pus.’
Time to wrap up my argument. ‘The point is, Mike, you need Zeb to keep an eye on you for a year. Make sure the wounds heal. Maybe put in a fresh crop. You kill him now, and it’s the public clinic for you. Try keeping that quiet.’
It’s a strong argument. Well put.
‘So that’s the case for him. What about you?’
‘Me? You could try to kill me, but your organisation is going to be a whole lot weaker afterwards. Face it, Mike, you have limited resources, and Macey Barrett was your number-one guy.’
I turn the stiletto a little to focus Mike’s attention on the subject. Guys like him have a hard time accepting their own mortality, unless it’s tickling their jugular.
‘Hey, okay. Jesus, laddie, you drive a hard bargain.’
I let him have that laddie.
‘So, we walk?’
Mike shrugs. ‘Sure. But I ain’t paying for check-ups.’
Zeb chews his lip, but manages a single grudging positive grunt.
‘And you cover Victor Jones’s debt.’
‘One-time payment. And I send one of my staff around with the monthly.’
Mike nods; any more and he’ll impale himself.
‘Fuck that. I collect myself, keep an eye on your operation.’
That’s good enough. ‘Good enough,’ I say.
I withdraw the stiletto, and a rivulet of blood flows down Mike’s neck, pooling in the cup of his sternum. He sponges it with a shirtsleeve.
‘This is not good for me. Making deals. If word gets out that this asshole tried to blackmail Irish Mike Madden and got off with a beating. .’
He doesn’t need to say any more. That kind of rumour could be disastrous. A wave of welshers and con artists would rise up in the morning.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ I say soothingly. ‘One word from Zeb and I will deliver him to you myself.’
One of Mike’s men is not taking this negotiation well. His face is drawn tight with outrage. I know the type, a bully with a gun. This guy is going to be whispering in Mike’s ear how I have to die. Soon as I’m out the door, his jaw starts flapping.
I look him in the eye and wince.
‘You got something wrong with your face, McEvoy? You in pain?’
‘Not me,’ I say, and shatter his kneecap with my heel. It’s a funny thing to see a leg bend the wrong way. Not funny haha. The guy goes down sideways, like a black-and-white movie drunk, snapping off shots as he goes. One hits his partner, the Scotland/Ireland guy, in the gluteus maximus. He drops to his knees, gasping.
‘Go, Dan,’ coughs Zeb. ‘Just kill them all. We’d be better off in the long run.’
I put Irish Mike between me and the shooter in the other room, who can’t do much except holler. But then another muscle man, the driver, comes barrelling in the back door. This throws me off altogether. Presumably this guy was out for the count, but now he’s obviously awake and pissed. How pissed?
Without saying a word, the guy shoots Zeb in the shoulder. Suppressor on the pistol too. Classy.
‘Scheherazade,’ blurts Zeb as he falls backwards in the chair. As far as I know, Scheherazade is a character from Arabian Nights, and I have no idea why Zeb would say this. Maybe I misheard.
While I’m thinking about this, Irish Mike spins and demonstrates why he’s the boss, unleashing a massive uppercut that takes me squarely under the chin. My feet actually leave the ground, then I’m on the floor, my head between Zeb’s knees and the stiletto six feet away.
Stars are blinking before my eyes and it’s all over. Two seconds, maybe three.
‘Neck punch,’ shouts Mike, eyes bright with triumph. ‘How’d you like that, laddie? You had it coming. Fuck you and fuck you again.’
What was I thinking? This was never going to end well; too many unknowns. My unbelievable winning streak had to peter out sometime. A pity it had to be with my head between Zeb’s legs.
My ears are wet with the sticky flow of Zeb’s blood and something clicked when I took the blow. My jaw? A couple of teeth? The pain is too big to pinpoint its origin.
Be nice to have a flashback now, hear some inspirational music, turn into a super soldier.
‘Your head is on my balls, man,’ complains Zeb, who isn’t dead yet. ‘That’s embarrassing. I don’t want to be found like this.’
Me neither. I don’t want to be found at all.
The clinic is whirling and I feel sick to the pit of my stomach. I smell blood, sweat, maybe urine. .
‘Zeb. You piss yourself?’
‘Screw you. I’ve been in this chair for ever.’
How can we be bantering like this in the face of oblivion? Is this the most important thing after all? Communication?
We lie in a tangle of limbs, like discarded mannequins ready for the bonfire, and I feel certain that this is what Mike has in mind. One little inferno and all the evidence goes away.
I crane my neck, relieving the pressure on Zeb’s testicles, and looking into my friend’s eyes. I have to know, before I die.
‘What the hell is Scheherazade, man?’
‘That just came out. It’s a safe word,’ says Zeb shamefacedly. ‘Sometimes the S and M hookers ask for a safe word in case things get a bit out of hand. I wouldn’t even be telling you this if we weren’t about to die and I wasn’t riding the painkiller wave.’
Christ. A safe word. They don’t work outside of cathouses or Dungeons and Dragons.
My breathing seems loud and there are screams bouncing off the walls. The butt-shot guy and the busted-knee guy are yelling up a storm. I can’t even hope for a quick death now.
Mike is shouting something, but it’s like he’s in a Perspex booth. His voice seems muffled and far away.
‘. . let you live. Why would I do that?’
Okay. I’m tuning in now. Why would he let me live? There is a reason. I almost have it when Mike stamps on my knee. No break, but painful as hell.
‘You like that, McEvoy? Huh? Isn’t this what they call poetic justice? I do to you like you did to my man. I am going to kill you slow, laddie. Not your friend, though. He gets patched up to keep an eye on my new hair.’
Zeb finds himself a set of brass ones. ‘Screw you, Madden. You kill Dan, you better kill me too.’
‘Let’s see if the horrific torture you’re about to witness can change your mind.’
‘Yeah,’ mutters Zeb. ‘Torture might do it.’
Mike embraces the shooter. ‘Calvin. That was outstanding work. One shot on the move, takes out the doctor and creates a diversion. You pricks see that?’
The pricks in question are writhing on the floor, but still they make time for a yes, Mister Madden.
‘That was quite a punch you threw, Mister Madden,’ says Calvin, who is no idiot.
‘Yes, laddie. We make a good team. You are my new number two. Barrett is dead, long live Calvin.’
All this lovey-dovey gangster talk is giving my brain time to stop vibrating. I had a Plan B, in case everything turned to crap. Plan B.
And then I remember. Tommy Fletcher, my ace in the green hole.
‘Ballyvaloo,’ I blurt before my mind loses it.
‘Not much of a safe word,’ notes Zeb.
But it means something to Irish Mike. He quits hugging his new number two and walks towards me with a face like thunder.
‘What did you say?’
‘Ballyvaloo,’ I repeat, spitting blood on my shirt. ‘What the fuck is a ballyvaloo?’ wonders Calvin.
I rub my tender jaw. ‘Not what, where.’
Mike raises his foot to stomp on me, then thinks better of it.
‘Tell me what you’ve done. Tell me!’
‘Nothing. Not yet.’
Mike is a reasonably smart guy. It doesn’t take him long to make the leap.
‘Let me guess: if I kill you, then my mother is murdered, blah blah blah. You’re bluffing, McEvoy. You haven’t set anything up. You looked me up on the internet and found that I bought my dear mother a retirement cottage in Ireland. Period. Shoot the fucker, Calvin.’
I stare Calvin down. ‘Pull that trigger and Mummy is dead.’
Calvin is conflicted. Do what the boss says, or possibly be indirectly responsible for killing the boss’s mother.
‘One phone call, Mike. Then do what you like. Look in my eyes and tell me I’m lying.’
It’s a stupid line, but at this moment I am as serious as a shattered kneecap or a bullet in the arse. Mike glares into my eyes, snuffling like a hungry dog, and apparently finds some truth in there.
‘One call, McEvoy. If you have harmed my mother. . if you have so much as disturbed her supper. .’
If I have to endure one more diatribe.
‘Yeah yeah, give me my phone.’
Irish Mike tosses me my phone, which is actually Barrett’s phone. It takes me three attempts to get the number in. Tiny buttons, big blood-slicked fingers, not a good combination.
‘It’s international,’ I say, trying to sound conversational. ‘So I don’t want to stay on too long.’
Mike’s stare could strip paint. ‘Put it on speaker, shithead. For all I know, you could be calling up your bookie.’
Fair point. I find the speaker button and twist my little finger into it. A shrill double brrrrp blasts from the phone.
‘Weird ring,’ says Zeb, now totally in the Paramol’s clutches. ‘It’s like brrrrp and then another one exactly the same.’
It’s true. International ring tones can be surprising.
Shattered Kneecap is whining, so Mike has Butt Shot drag him out back. The tension levels in the room drop instantly. They go right back up again when the phone is answered by a gruff Irish voice.
‘Aye. Who is it?’
Real Irish. From the heart of Belfast. An accent to make the hardest hard man long for a mother’s bosom to nuzzle.
‘Yeah. Corporal. It’s me, Dan.’
‘Sergeant McEvoy. Okay to drop the hammer?’
‘No. Negative, Corporal. Just confirm your position.’
‘Christ, Sarge. I already popped the old dear, and a few of the cousins too.’
‘Bastard,’ howls Irish Mike. ‘Bastaard.’
There follows a satisfied chuckle that reminds me of Corporal Fletcher shooting close to desert mutts, just to see them jump.
‘Irish Mike Madden, I presume. Just kidding, pal. But now you know how it’s going to feel. A little taste.’
Mike is winded as though gut-punched. His eyes are suddenly bloodshot and his hands shake.
‘Where are you? Where?’
‘I am in the dunes above Ballyvaloo, looking down on a lovely little cottage. Smoke coming out of the chimney, a light in the window. Sure it’s like a fucking postcard. It’d be an awful shame to lob a mortar on to that thatch.’
Mike gets his wind back. ‘You are dead! You hear me? Deceased. You know who I am? I will fucking. .’
Corporal Tommy Fletcher chuckles once more, this time rolling into a fully fledged laugh that overloads the phone’s tiny speaker, breaking into crackling static. He keeps laughing until Mike shuts the hell up.
‘You finished, Mike? Hey, I understand. You’re a good son, a tough guy. But listen to me, Mike. You’re in over your head now. Before Sergeant McEvoy carried me out of a war zone, I did some time in the Rangers. That’s special operations to Joe Public. I’ve buried more bodies in the desert than you’ve had blow jobs from your hookers. I leave one coded message on a website and a hundred guys are on a plane to New Jersey. We will bury you so deep that you’ll be sleeping with the dinosaurs. I can do things to your mother that will make her curse your name. You want that, Mike?’
‘I could track you down,’ Mike says weakly.
Fletcher laughs. ‘This is the army, Mikey. We’re right here. You don’t need to track us down. Listen, Sarge, I don’t think he’s getting it. What say I take a thumb from the old lady, maybe an eye?’
I tick-tock my head, thinking about it. ‘No. I think Mike gets it. He’s top man in a big operation here. You don’t get to be top man by being stupid. Am I right, Mike?’
Irish Mike is having a hard time dealing with the situation. It’s affecting his entire being. The power of speech seems to have deserted him and his head is bulging in places where bulges should not be. He’s snorting like a bull in the ring and his hands are raised, strangling an invisible person.
‘Am I right, Mike?’ I prompt. ‘Or do I tell my corporal to proceed?’
‘You’re right,’ says Mike dully. ‘This doesn’t have to go any further. I think we can call it a day.’ He lifts a hand, finger crooked to scratch his scalp.
‘Nu-uh, Mister Madden,’ admonishes Zeb. ‘No scratching. You want scars, is that it?’
‘You’re right, of course. No scratching.’
I speak clearly into the phone. ‘Did you get that, Tommy? Stand down.’
‘Say again? Was it stand down or go to town? Because I can go to town on this old lady right now.’
‘Stand down, you crazy bastard. Do not hurt Mrs Madden.’
‘Okay, Sarge. Copy. Keep tabs, though, right?’
‘That’s a roger,’ I say. Military speak always unsettles civilians.
‘I’m off for a pint then, if there’s no shooting to be done. Talk to you tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow and every day.’
Tommy hangs up and I fold the phone into my pocket.
‘You see how it is, Mike.’
Mike is dazed now, arms dangling by his sides, eyes heavy-lidded.
‘Yeah, I see. What do you want?’
I roll slowly to my knees, and from there make the mammoth transition to standing upright.
‘This is not a shakedown, Mike. All you have to do is go home. It’s as simple as that. Everything else stays the same. Zeb does your check-ups, I pay protection and I’ll even throw in Vic’s debt. Everyone’s as happy as they can be without true love.’
‘I’m not happy,’ moans Zeb. ‘I got fucking shot.’
I hoist him up by the elbow. ‘You needed to get shot. This is all your fault.’
‘Who you talking to? Real Zeb or Ghost Zeb?’
I really hope Zeb develops post-traumatic amnesia. Maybe I should give him a few more of his own pills.
Mike is working his fists, like he has walnuts in there. ‘Okay. We’re out of here. This never happened. One word of this around town and I got no choice but to take action.’
My jaw is hurting now and I feel like taking a pop at Mike to speed him on his way, but I hold back.
‘Fair enough.’
‘I want my Lexus back.’
‘I’ll drive it over tomorrow.’
‘With Vic’s debt, plus interest.’
These guys and their interest.
‘Screw your interest, Mike. The rates are too fluid with you people.’
Mike nods slowly, trying to find some closure. This is a long-term arrangement, but a man like him needs the final word. Otherwise he may just say screw it, kill the both of us, get a black armband and wear a hat for the rest of his life.
The gang boss takes two steps towards the back door, then hesitates. He turns back, settling the soft cap over his head of scabs. From the look on his face I’d say he’s thought of a few final words.
‘My mother is an old woman,’ he says. ‘She could go at any time. After that there are a few cousins but I could give a fuck about them. So the clock is ticking, laddies. When Ma dies, I’m coming after you.’
Those are pretty good words.